Misbehaving Second Life Players Banished to Corn Field

Nimrod Yaffle, a resident of the virtual world Second Life, has revealed details of a bizarre and dark prison Second Life's maker Linden Lab is now using to lock up criminal avatars. Dubbed the "The Corn Field," the moonlit environment contains only rows of corn, two television sets, an aging tractor and a one-way teleport terminal allowing no escape. It exists as an alternative to standard disciplinary measures, which traditionally prevent access to Second Life completely.

After breaking Second Life's rules, Yaffle was informed via email by Linden Lab that he was being sent to The Corn Field. "I thought it was a joke," Yaffle told me in-world. "I never even knew it existed before I went there, and by the looks of it, a lot of other people didn't either." Rumour and speculation about the prison has been running amok in the Second Life community since word of The Corn Field spread, but until recently the prison simulator hadn't been officially confirmed.

"Sometimes when someone is suspended for a short time they are sent to the cornfield," Linden Lab's Senior VP of Community and Support wrote on the official Second Life discussion forums yesterday, adding that building the cornfield didn't require any significant development work and reassuring the community that "Once someone is permanently banned they are no longer welcome in Second Life, anywhere, including the cornfield."